Grimm

Grimm, FRIEDRICH MELCHIOR, BARON, a clever German critic, who knew every one worth knowing at Paris in the later half of the 18th century. He was born at Ratisbon, 25th December 1723, and after completing his studies at Leipzig, and making an egregious failure with a tragedy, accompanied the young Count de Schönberg to Paris, and soon after became reader to the Crown-prince of Saxe-Gotha. He was still in very straitened circumstances when he became acquainted with Rousseau in 1749, and was by him introduced to Diderot, Baron Holbach, and Madame d'Epinay. The intimacy of his relations with this lady cost him later the friendship of the jealous Rousseau. Grimm quickly became a general favourite, and his connection with the Encyclopédistes, added to his own multifarious acquirements and versatility of mind, opened up to him a brilliant career. He became secretary to Count Friesen, next to the Duke of Orleans, and now began to write for several German princes those famous literary bulletins which cover about forty years, and con- tain the most trenchant criticism of all the most important of current French books. In 1776 he was raised by the Duke of Gotha to the rank of baron, and appointed minister-plenipotentiary at the French court. On the breaking out of the Revolution, he withdrew to Gotha, and afterwards to the court of Catharine II. at St Petersburg whence he was sent in 1795 as minister of Russia to Hamburg. He died at Gotha, 19th December 1807. His Correspondance Littéraire, Philosophique et Critique, extending from 1753 to 1790, was published in three divisions (16 vols. 1812-13); a supplementary volume in 1814. Later editions are those by Taschereau (15 vols. 1829-31), and Tourneux (16 vols. 1878-82). The Correspondance inédite de Grimm et Diderot was published in 1829. See Sainte-Beuve, Études sur Grimm (1854); and Edmond Scherer's Melchior Grimm (Paris, 1887).